Story by 89 WLS reporter Bill Cameron
Mayor Emanuel's been talking up more gun control since Newtown, but the mayor may be vulnerable on the other component to a possible solution: mental health treatment.
Easier access to mental health treatment is thought to be part of the solution to senseless gun violence, but the critics say Mayor Emanuel made it harder when he closed about half of the city's mental health clinics.
Not so says the mayor, "First we increased our care for psychiatric, which is care we never had. Second, we now serve a total of 4,000 people. Five hundred new clients since May are now getting services. Every location now has four to five therapists. And that $500,000 we added to the budget in 2011 for change and reform we brought has given a thousand people more care than they had before."
But the mental health patients who've demonstrated at the mayor's office and home say they're getting less not more.
© Content Copyright 2012 WLS Radio 890AM and WLSAM.com. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.